You're arguing with feminists about what feminism is.
No, I'm not. I'm talking about mainstream feminism. Gary asked me for clarification, and I gave it - we are talking about a specific subset of the group.
First you get around this by defining the argument as about 'mainstream' feminism, but only refer to the most extreme examples you can find.
Believe me, I'm very far from referring to anything extreme. I'm focusing on the mainstream, i.e. what gets published and what gets a sizeable audience. I already said that I'd like to see this other feminism. Will you be the one to show it to me?
Then, when they tell you that what you're describing isn't really mainstream feminism and that feminism as serious, 3rd wave feminists tend to describe it is about combating gender bias, which (for example) includes making women part of the draft (if the draft must exist) and combating the belief that men can't get raped, you change the conversation again to be about extremist wings of feminism that you've pre-defined as authoritarian.
I never changed the subject. I started this thread with a very specific set of articles, in response to a very specific series of posts in another thread. If you thought it was about something else than that, that's on you.
To give you a brief reminder: In the original thread (which I explicitly pointed out this is a response to in the OP) you asked how feminism is authoritarian. Parsifal responded with Its original ideals are not. However, a lot of modern feminists like to propose ridiculous rules that silence men in order to achieve gender "balance".' Vindictus then quoted an example of an authoritarian feminist which you dismissed due to it being from Tumblr. I then started the thread and posted a large amount of other examples.
Let me emphasise Parsifal's post, since it's crucial to your misunderstanding here: we all agree that
the original ideas of feminism are not authoritarian. We're talking about the actual people who represent the movement, not the ideology as it's written down on paper.
That said, I'm glad that classify the likes of Watson, Valenti and Holman are extremists.
I guess my answer to you is: if we're defining feminism as only being the authoritarian sects of feminism, then yes. Feminism is authoritarian.
Again: I'm defining
mainstream feminism as feminism with prominence
in the mainstream. If you'd like to
show me alternative examples, I'll happily consider them. Talking about hypothetical constructs is completely pointless here. Show me some articles. Show me recent, prominent feminists with considerable public exposure who do not subscribe to authoritarian views.
Given how open-minded you are talking to feminists right now, at this very moment, I don't deny that you've done it but I somehow suspect your mind was made up before you entered the conversation.
You're welcome to assume whatever you want. If you choose to judge me by the tone of my words while ignoring their merit, to misrepresent said words, or to value words over actions, that's entirely your choice. I can't say I'm surprised, given that these sort of strategies are commonly used by authoritarian ideologues.